\chapter{Skills}
\vspace{-37pt}
\begin{flushright}
\quot{No one may ever know if what you did was good or bad, but you did it well.}
\end{flushright}
\vspace{37pt}

\desc{A key portion of the die roll for any test is the \emph{skill}. It represents \emph{specific} training that helps a character perform a task. And because of that, it can lead to a fair amount of confusion among some people, because linguistically we refer both to people who are very good at something and also people who are good at a wide variety of things as being ``skilled.'' In aWoD, skills are basically confined to the former interpretation. Jacks of All Trades are represented game mechanically by people who have relatively high \emph{Attributes} and low skills. People with high skills are specialists by definition.}

\section[Skill List]{Active Skills}
\input{skills/physical}
\clearpage
\input{skills/social}
\input{skills/technical}

\section*{Specializations}
\vspace{-10pt}
\quot{This is what I'm good at. And I'm the best. You might ask: `what good is that'? And the answer is that being the best at anything makes you the best at something.}

\desc{A specialization is a subset of a skill that a character is especially proficient in. When they make tests using the skill in a manner that is relevant to their interests, they gain 2 extra dice in their dice pool. Technical skills are an inherently specialized field, so in addition to getting 2 extra dice within a character's specialties, Technical Skill dicepools are \emph{penalized} by 1 die if they are being used outside a relevant specialization.}

\desc{The sample specializations are by no means comprehensive, and players should work with their storyteller to find or create specializations that are right for them. A character might have their Sabotage specialized in Eco-Terrorism covering both spiking trees (that might more frequently go under ``traps'') \emph{and} breaking a bulldozer (that might frequently go under ``Disabling Stuff''). Another character might have their Animal Ken specialized in Horses, covering the training, breeding, and calming of wild and domestic horses.}

\noindent{The Storyteller should take care to make sure that no specialization is universally useful. Specializing a skill in something that would apply in all cases is basically the same as just getting 2 points in the skill, and that's unfair. Storytellers must be expected to reject specializing Combat in ``fighting'' or specializing Bureaucracy in ``paperwork.'' A character can have more than one specialization in the same skill, and this is often very important for Technical skills. If more than one Specialization would apply, the character still only gets 2 bonus dice.}

\input{skills/background}

\input{skills/samplebackground}

\section{Using Skills}

\desc{When you use a skill, describe what it is that you intend to do to the Storyteller, and then between the two of you determine an acceptable Skill and Attribute to use. Remember that the attribute being used in an action determines what kind of people are naturally talented at that kind of action, not on what kind of character is generally good at a skill. For example, in the general running of a power plant one might expect that a ``smart'' hero would be the man for the job, and thus a good standby check to make for actions from shunting power away from the financial district to increasing power yield might be Logic + Operations. But in the specific case of getting the emergency valves opened during an overheating event, Strength + Operations might be called for instead (those valves can be hard to turn).}

\desc{The next thing you do is roll your dice, counting every 5 or 6 as a `Hit'. The number of hits you get determines how awesome you did, with this representing overall success or not depending on how awesome the specific thing you were attempting to do was. Doing something incredibly awesome when the task at hand is something like ``bake a cake'' is potentially delicious, but often fairly inconsequential. On the flip side, if the goal is to do something of awesome difficulty such as leap into an open window on a moving train, the results will be unfortunate if the level of success attained is merely normal.}

\ability{Buying Hits:}{When a character is not under any particular threat or pressure, they may elect to forgo the process of actually rolling dice and simply get one hit for every 4 full dice in their dice pool. This process of "phoning it in" gets a character less awesomeness than had they legitimately tried, but it has a strong tendency to work if that's all that is required.}

\desc{\intable{|l|l|}{
\hline
\bolded{Hits:} &\bolded{Awesomeness}\\
\hline
\bolded{0:} &Not Awesome. Tying shoes, climbing stairs.\\
\hline
\bolded{1:} &Completely Pedestrian. Driving a car, buying lunch at cost.\\
\hline
\bolded{2:} &Professional.\\
\hline
\bolded{3:} &Hard.\\
\hline
\bolded{4:} &Extreme.\\
\hline
\bolded{5:} &Crazy Extreme.\\
\hline
\bolded{6:} &Super Human.\\
\hline}}

\desc{It is important to note that normal humans often have dice pools of 4 dice or less on tasks they do frequently. So when a supernatural critter throws down on a task with 12 dice or more that really is an incredible thing to watch. Such characters can literally phone in a TV quality performance and the like. Storytellers should not become jaded and allow success inflation to cheapen the actions of characters with super human dice pools. Characters who can lift and throw motorcycles genuinely can expect to casually kick in locked doors. The fact that success is practically automatic for these tasks should not be resisted, but rather embraced as a fact that is itself impressive and magical.}

\ability{Predictable Failure:}{Sometimes a character will be struggling under enough penalties that they don't have a dice pool at all. In these instances, the character is going to get zero hits, which means that absolutely nothing they do will be awesome. They can still stagger down the corridor or open a door, but as soon as a stunt requires even one hit they are going to fail unless they are a Luminary who can spend Edge on the problem to get some dice and a chance.}
%\ability{Pulling Punches:}{However many hits a character actually rolls, they can always choose to actually use less than that if for some reason they want to perform an action that is less awesome than they are in fact capable of. A character can not simply choose to attain more hits, however (though they may spend Edge if they are a Luminary).}
\medskip

\ability{Extended Tests:}{Some actions take an expected amount of time. If a character gets the requisite number of hits, they succeed in the expected amount of time. If they get more than the requisite number of hits, they may complete the task well ahead of schedule. For every hit made in excess of the minimum, move to the next lower amount of time on the time chart. If a character fails to succeed, they may retry, but only after having put in the normal time into the first shot. So for example: Mina is attempting to paint a house (Strength + Artisan, 1, 2 days) and gets 3 hits. Since she got 2 more hits than she needed, she can go to the next lower time period twice, bringing the time frame down to five hours.}

\begin{list}{}{\itemspace}
\item \bolded{Time Chart}
\end{list}
\listone
\item Century 
\item Decade 
\item Year 
\item Season 
\item Month 
\item Week 
\item 3 Days 
\item 1 Day 
\item 5 Hours 
\item 1 Hour 
\item 20 minutes 
\item 5 Minutes 
\item 1 Minute 
\item 1 Round 
\item Simple Action 
\item Free Action
\end{list}

\subsection*{Team Work}
\vspace{-6pt}
\quot{If you're about to launch a friendship speech, please don't.}

\desc{When more than one character throws their weight into a project they can achieve results that are more awesome and in less time than what either character could achieve alone. However, the game mechanics completely break down if you just add the dicepool of one character to another. What is done instead is that whichever character has the best dicepool is considered the main acting character, and the other characters are considered the assisting characters. Each assisting character makes their check, and each hit is added as a bonus die on the main character's test. Since characters get about 1 hit per three dice, on average improving the awesomeness of a task is ``hard'' (threshold 3). In many cases a storyteller will allow a character to assist with a tangential but vaguely related skill (and in such cases it is entirely possible for one of the assisting characters to roll more dice than the main acting character).}

\noindent\textbf{Maximum Characters:} Too many cooks spoil the broth. How many characters qualify as ``too many'' is unfortunately a very fluid concept that depends a lot on what you're doing. Sometimes there are real physical limits to how many people can literally fit around a project, and other times it's procedural. In general, most teamwork projects should be handled with five or less people. A project larger than that should probably be split into multiple tests, although at the storyteller's discretion there may be exceptions. A good set of management protocols is essential for most group projects to move forward. Most of the time, no more assisting characters can work on a project than the highest Tactics skill of the characters. The character providing the tactics skill allowing multiple characters to work on the project need not be the main acting character and often will not be.

\section[Using Attributes]{Using Attributes Without Skills}
\vspace{-10pt}
\quot{``Granted, but I'm still huge.''}

\desc{Characters in the World of Darkness may be called upon to use skills when they don't actually have training in that area. In this case, the character is called upon to default on the skill. This allows the character to roll a dicepool of their appropriate Attribute (plus zero dice for not having the skill). When defaulting on a Social or Technical Skill, the character suffers an additional -1 die penalty for being untrained. When using Technical Skills, that same -1 die penalty applies whenever the character doesn't have an appropriate specialization (even if they \emph{do} have the appropriate skill). But there are a number of times when you will want to do something for which \emph{no} skill applies.}

\subsection{Resistance Rolls}
\vspace{-8pt}
\quot{``No one could have survived that.''}

\desc{Characters who are attacked or endangered are often entitled to a Resistance Roll to soak the effects of whatever they are threatened with, whether its the power of a magical assault or a bullet to the stomach. In general, a Physical Resistance roll will usually be just Strength (no skill), a Mental Resistance roll will usually be just Intuition (again, no skill), and a Social Resistance roll will be just Willpower (likewise). Luminaries get a special bonus, where they can add their Edge to Resistance rolls, almost like Edge was the ``take less damage from bullets'' skill, if that makes things any easier.}

\subsection{Sure Things: Heavy Lifting}
\quot{``Sure, sometimes you can do all kinds of stuff. But I can \emph{always} lift a car.''}

\desc{There are things you don't have to roll because they simply \emph{are}. A character with a high Charisma \emph{is} charming, a character with a high Logic \emph{is} smart. Even if they offend someone or fail to solve a problem, they will do so in a charming or intelligent fashion. But probably the thing you will run into most frequently as far as automatic uses of Attributes is Strength. People who have a high Strength \emph{are strong}, and they can lift heavy things. So to help out with that, here's a table of how much a character might be able to push themselves to lift up, and how much they might be able to carry home without hurting themselves.}

\intable{|l|l|l|}{
\hline
\textbf{Strength}&\textbf{Maximum Lift}&\textbf{Carry Home}\\
\hline
\textbf{1} &30 kilos &10 kilos\\
\hline
\textbf{2} &50 kilos &20 kilos\\
\hline
\textbf{3} &100 kilos &30 kilos\\
\hline
\textbf{4} &150 kilos &50 kilos\\
\hline
\textbf{5} &250 kilos &70 kilos (average human)\\
\hline
\textbf{6} &450 kilos &100 kilos\\
\hline
\textbf{7} &750 kilos &200 kilos\\
\hline
\textbf{8} &1.25 tonnes &500 kilos\\
\hline
\textbf{9} &2 tonnes &1 tonne\\
\hline
}